Cloud Solution Architect

With over 17,000 employees worldwide, the Microsoft Customer Experience & Success (CE&S) organization is responsible for the strategy, design, and implementation of Microsoft’s end-to-end customer experience. Come join CE&S and help us build a future where customers come to us not only because we provide industry-leading products and services, but also because we provide a differentiated and connected customer experience.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

**Responsibilities**:

- Understand customers' overall cloud portfolio, business aligned IT priorities, and success measures to design implementation architectures and scalable cloud solutions leveraging hand-on and practical expertise in cloud infrastructure solutions (Windows and Linux IaaS, VMware, BCDR, Security, Management, Storage, Networking, OSS, containers and Infra as a code technologies).
- Collaborate with other Cloud Solution Architects and MS stakeholders in developing complex end-to-end Enterprise solutions on the Microsoft Azure platform.
- Ensure all solutions leverage the design and operations guidance according to the Well-Architected framework across all pillars, including performance efficiency, security, operational excellence, reliability, and cost optimization
- Run Architectural Design Sessions to build plan for implementing solution -governing design in line with customer business goals and their technical environment. Outcome is consensus on solution design and next steps toward production. Use CAF Landing Zones to rapidly prototype and deliver proof-of-concepts that accelerate production deployment
- Develop deep relationships with key customer IT decision makers, who drive long-term cloud adoption within their company to enable them to be cloud advocates
- Be the Voice of the Customer; Share insights and best practices, and connect with Engineering teams to remove blockers
- Assess the customer knowledge of Azure platform and overall cloud readiness to support customers through a structured learning plan and ensure delivery through partners
- Collaborate with others in developing complex end-to-end Enterprise solutions on the Microsoft Azure platform
- Maintain technical skills and knowledge of market trends and competitive insights; collaborate and share with the technical community - Be an Azure Platform evangelist with customers, partners and external communities.
- Build and grow developer communities by driving activities including OpenHacks, Workshops

**Qualifications**:
Required/Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 8+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, information technology (IT) consulting/support, systems administration, network operations, software development/support, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting
OR
Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 6+ years experience in cloud/infrastructure technologies, technology solutions, practice development, architecture, and/or consulting

8+ years experience working on technical projects.

Professional
- Insightful listening: Cognitive and behavioral approach to listening, asking insightful questions to understand the customer needs, issues, business environment and drivers, and going beyond what is said
- Situational fluency: Will explore attributes and actions of being situationally fluent, using self-awareness as a mechanism to interpret verbal and non-verbal cues to increase your ability to "read the room." It will teach practical methods for pivoting the customer conversation based on what you observe in your current environment
- Building relationships and Trusted Advisership: Building trust and creating credibility, leveraging relationship mapping across and within the account team.
- Business value: Understanding customer business outcomes, helping them define the value of the outcomes, aligned to industry outcomes, and assessing the value of the solution.
- Leveraging Digital signals: Seeking out and understanding internal and external digital signals and modern selling techniques to support compiling a complete picture of the customer, understanding their needs qualifying engagements, and account team orchestration and partner sharing